Melanie Pinola

Every wonder while you were reading a book what the author meant by a certain passage and wished you could ask the writer directly? Amazon's new @author feature will connect you with some famous authors directly from Kindle or Amazon.com.

To ask a question while you're reading one of the participating authors' books in Kindle, you just need to highlight the passage you'd like to ask a question about using the 5-way controller and type your message starting with "@author"; Amazon will tweet your question to the writer and post it on his or her Amazon Author page. Short questions only, please: questions from the Kindle are limited to 100 characters. If you have a more lengthy question, you can ask it from the Amazon Author page.

Currently in limited beta, there are a little over a dozen authors currently participating, including Tim Ferriss (4-Hour Workweek and 4-Hour Body), Susan Orlean (Rin Tin Tin and The Orchid Thief) and Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Rich Dad's Cashflow Quadrant).